PhD: Completed It!

February 03, 2023

2022 marked the end of a big chapter of my life. The culmination of my PhD journey, easily the most challenging project I have ever undertaken. Alongside graduating from my PhD as a Doctor of Philosophy, this year I formalised my relationship as a…

Thoughts and Ideas on the Memory of Things

March 06, 2021

An idea has been maturing in my thoughts for a while now. Or rather I have been thinking about a series of ideas, programming projects I would love to actualise, which I recently realised share a common thread. Memory and how we access it. Probably…

Nobody is in Control

July 16, 2020

My first attempt at the Cabaret of Dangerous Ideas. Scary… I was nervous and I know I could have conveyed my thoughts with more clarity and coherence. I virtually missed out my section on trust - our way of navigating the uncertainties of our…

IIW XXX

May 08, 2020

I finally made it to the Internet Identity Workshop. A three day unconference based on open space technology that has been running twice a year for the last 15 years. It’s a bit like a pilgrimage for the identity community. I am going to struggle to…

Are You in Control?

April 05, 2020

As our data continues to be collected, exchanged, stored, sold and analysed, are we giving away more than we can comprehend? Do we have control over our digital lives? What would that even look like? Join Will Abramson (Edinburgh Napier University…

Designing Secure and Usable Credential Schema

March 23, 2020

The Self-Sovereign identity space is still very much in its infancy, however, the technology behind it is maturing and the developer tools available are growing every day. The reason this space is still in its infancy is that real-world…

Verifiable Image Attributes Using IPFS

March 20, 2020

This is a quick(ish) explainer and how-to guide for including images inside a Verifiable Credential attribute in such a way that a Verifier can load the image and verify it is the same as the image attested to by the issuer. The problem with an image…

Developing Identity Systems Using Hyperledger Aries

March 18, 2020

TLDR: if you are going to read one thing the read this about the general Trust over IP stack Hyperledger Aries is an open source project and specification for developing software agents that can communicate across secure cryptographic channels. The…

What is Digital Identity?

March 03, 2020

Digital identity and identity are two distinctly different things. Our identity is all-encompassing, ephemeral, and constantly shifting as we reinvent ourselves based on our past experiences and current circumstances. Identity is a concept that…

Getting Started With MIRACL Core

December 15, 2019

Over the last few weeks I have been getting to grips with the MIRACL core cryptography library - which describes itself as: MIRACL Core is a multi-lingual and architecturally agnostic Cryptographic library that supports elliptic curve cryptography…

Facebook Erased Me

December 04, 2019

Last month I got erased from Facebook. No warning. No communication. Just one day when I tried to login I was faced with this message: Leaving me thinking, hmm that’s weird, probably just a mistake I don’t see why my account would be disabled. I…

PhD Thesis Proposal: Evaluating Identity Ecosystems

September 24, 2019

This is a brief summary of my current research focus and objectives for the rest of my PhD - I have two years. I write this in preparation for the MyData 2019 conference and would welcome feedback, comments and questions. If you are at the conference…

Reflections on the BIL Conference

September 10, 2019

Our lab’s recent conference was the culmination of its first year in existence. A celebration of what we have learnt and a recognition of the challenges we still have to overcome. It was not perfect, there were some technical issues and timing was…

A Long Overdue Update

April 26, 2019

It’s been a while since I took a step back and reflected on my progress and development as a researcher and generally a learner in the fast-moving field of identity, cryptography and everything in between. A lot has happened. A whole university term…

Rebooting the Web of Trust 8 - Barcelona

March 11, 2019

Rebooting the Web of Trust was a melting pot of ideas where experts from across the identity community come together to develop whitepapers and code addressing some of the most pressing issues in the space. Probably the best community, conference…

CL Signatures for Anonymous Credentials

January 14, 2019

A CL Signature is a signature scheme developed by Jan Camenisch and Anna Lysyanskaya. This scheme has some properties that make it ideal for use in an anonymous credential system and is, in fact, the scheme that Sovrin, and I am sure others…

Strong Authentication and Identity Workshop

December 18, 2018

My first experience of the standards world at the W3C. It was not what I expected, but a worthwhile experience that I have a lot to learn from. Developing standards is clearly a tough business. The challenge is to develop a small, inter-operable…

W3C Identity Workshop Position Statement

December 04, 2018

I am hugely looking forward to attending the W3C Workshop on Strong Authentication and Identity. It is going to be a place for me to validate my current ideas and understanding of the identity space with a group of experts. I hope that it will be a…

Do you exist online?

July 26, 2018

What aspect of your digital life truly belongs to you? What do you use to identify yourself online? Is it yours? What happens to the data you create online? Can you confidently say that you own it? Or that you have a say in how it is used? Currently…